Infinitives
by hoidn
Summary: It's not about more or less.


**A/N:** this was written for lizwontcry in the Yuletide 2018 exchange. the formatting options here are limited so i'm not sure it's going to look very good.

AO3 tags: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Aftermath of miscarriage, Grief/Mourning, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Episode: s06e04 A Thing I'll Never Understand, Episode: S06e05 Burned Up My Tears, Episode: s06e10 Goodbye Is Always Implied, Post-Canon, Past and Present Timelines, POV Alternating, Language of Flowers, Love

* * *

Standing at the kitchen window, Walt watches the sky's transformation from opaque silver to a rich, boundless blue. Midsummer has passed them by but the sun still holds plenty of heat as it warms the waking morning. He sips a cup of coffee and listens to a meadowlark sing its sweet flute-song nearby.

The thick humidity of the last few days has evaporated, leaving the air light and crisp. There's a sense of anticipation to the breeze, a playful eagerness in the way it flutters the curtains. Though there's nothing special about the date — no anniversary or occasion — the day itself feels auspicious, filled with promise. Or maybe he's just getting fanciful in his old age, he thinks wryly as he rinses his mug.

It's Vic's day off and he doesn't want to wake her, but when he comes out of the bathroom a little later he finds she's rolled from her side onto her back. The sheet is caught around her hips, offering him a thoroughly arresting sight. Walt can't help but lean against the doorjamb to take her in.

The bare skin of her shoulders is still peeling a little from her last dose of sunburn. Vic complains about uneven tan lines but he's endlessly intrigued by her colors and gradients, from the reddish-brown sunburn of her upper arms to the pale ivory of her breasts, with their delicate blue rivers of veins just visible up close. The pink of her nipples is the exact shade of the early dawn sky.

He loses track of time studying her, only surfacing when the fingers of her upturned hand begin to twitch. One leg shifts beneath the sheet and her head rolls on the pillow to face him, as if she can sense him standing there. She takes a deep, rib-expanding breath, and stretches. The flex of her muscles and the arch of her back seduce him effortlessly. His body stirs in a wholly predictable way.

It's been more than a year now since the first night they spent together and there are still moments when he's filled with wonder that this extraordinary woman has chosen to be with him.

When she opens her eyes and gives him a sleepy smile it's as if the sun is rising over the horizon for the second time.

. . .

 _Harebells (Campanula rotundifolia) | The harebell is a herbaceous perennial flowering plant in the bellflower family Campanulaceae._

 _Meaning: Humility, Grief_

Vic's throat was raw when she finally stopped crying. Her swollen eyes felt too big for their sockets, burning whenever she blinked. She couldn't breathe through her nose at all and the pressure in her sinuses was strong enough to shatter her skull. The skin felt stretched too thin over the bones.

None of that mattered, though, because inside she'd been seared clean. Guilt, grief, shame — they'd been burnt away. She was an empty chamber, with walls as smooth and glassy as obsidian, and dark enough to swallow light.

Walt was still stroking her hair gently with one hand; his other cupped the crown of her head. His legs felt warm and strong through the slightly rough denim under her cheek. Grateful, she let him bear her weight as she stared out into nothing. The night around her seemed cavernous. If not for Walt she might slip into the wilderness of the dark, with no map and nothing to guide her, and let it swallow her up.

"I dreamed about her," Vic heard herself say into the brittle silence. Her voice sounded raspy and felt like a blade in her throat.

"What did you dream?"

The memory slid off her newly smooth surface and the words came out haltingly as she tried to gather the dream inside them.

"We were outside, the two of us, in a clearing. It was warm and the sun was so bright it hurt my eyes. I don't really know how to tell kids' ages but I think she was about five years old. She had on a little Flyers jersey and jeans. Blue Converse just like mine only tiny. I didn't even know they made them that small. She was painting, like with finger paints. She'd gotten them all over her face."

It was so vivid before her even now: the serious expression on the little girl's face as she concentrated on whatever she was painting.

"It sounds like a nice dream," Walt said quietly.

Vic considered it from her island of detachment. "At first it was. There was a stream in the clearing and red flowers. Everything was so green. The trees were so tall. I was watching her and then she was running towards me. I bent down and held my arms out to catch her and she just... disappeared. I looked around in this big open space and she was just gone. Like she'd never existed in the first place."

"But she did. She existed and you loved her."

"And I killed her."

Walt's hand paused in her hair. "You said you didn't think about her, but I don't believe that. She was part of you, Vic. Neither of you were safe as long as Chance Gilbert was free. You knew that. What you did was an act of self-defense, for her as much as for yourself."

Tears she didn't know she had left slid in damp trails down her cheeks. Her whole body felt heavy and numb. "Parents are supposed to protect their children and I didn't. I failed her."

He folded himself over her again, as though he could hold her together with his own body. "I know what it's like to live with guilt eating you up inside, but you didn't fail her. You didn't let anyone down." His hands tightened their grip, as if to press his words more firmly into her skin. "You have never let me down, Vic. Not once."

It was so gentle, this offer of comfort, but there was no softness left in her to receive it. Loss had hollowed her out and only a husk remained. She was an abandoned shell with nothing inside it, not even the sound of the sea.

. . .

"Hi," Vic murmurs. "What are you doing all the way over there?"

"I was trying not to wake you," Walt says as he sits on the edge of the mattress next to her. His weight tips her slightly towards him and she curves her body around his.

"Have you been up long?"

With a glance at the clock on the nightstand he says, "A few hours."

She closes her eyes with a little hum. "I think you should come back to bed."

"Do you?" He leans in to press a kiss to the soft, sweet flesh beneath the hinge of her jaw.

"Mm hmm."

The way she arches her neck invites him to explore more thoroughly. He brushes his lips over the whorl of her ear and then down to the hollow of her clavicle. He follows its path to the notch at the base of her throat where her pulse pushes up against her skin. One of her hands rises to settle on the back of his neck as he places open-mouthed kisses down her sternum and across the slope of her breast. Her fingers tunnel up into his hair.

Reaching her nipple, he exhales warm, damp air onto it and watches it tighten. Vic makes a soft noise in her throat. He lifts his head to find her sleepy golden eyes focused on him and feels his lungs seize at the hard slap of desire he's rocked by. It's startling sometimes, how much he can want her, how sharp and immediate the need can be.

She slips her fingers under the neck of his t-shirt and tugs at the collar. "Off."

Walt complies, standing to strip it over his head. As he reaches for his fly, Vic rises from the sheet like a naiad from a pool of water. With her sleekly-defined muscles, softly-rounded curves, and predator's smile, she's a vision of contradictions. His hands stall, forgetting how buttons work.

One winged eyebrow arches in amusement. "Need some help there?"

He lets his hands fall and watches hers in their swift and agile movements. When she reaches in to stroke his rapidly hardening dick, he has to close his eyes against the dizzying rush of his blood. "Vic," he groans, or tries to, against her smiling mouth, as she kisses him.

Finally, he shifts her hand away and gets his clothes off. Then she's pulling him down to the bed, pushing him onto his back, and straddling him. She's pink and richly gold above him, a riot of soft colors. The fall of her hair surrounds their faces like a veil of sunlight when she kisses him slow and deep.

Time turns thick and syrupy as Vic moves on him, enveloping him in her warmth. Yellow burns against his closed eyelids, heats his lungs as he gasps for breath. When he opens his eyes it's so bright, she's so bright, haloed by the window behind her. He slides his hands into her hair, spreading his fingers wide and watching the long strands fan out as they slip down to cover his throat and chest. At the mercy of the slow rolling motions of her hips, all Walt can do is watch her lovely face and hold on.

A hectic flush stains her cheeks when she comes, gasping. It's only a moment later that the hot coil and spiral of his own orgasm unwinds.

With a last haphazard kiss to his chin, Vic sprawls limply on top of his heaving chest. She makes a welcome, though slightly sweaty, blanket. Walt glides the tips of his fingers across her shoulder and waits for his heart to slow down.

Lemony sunshine is streaming through the open windows with the kind of pure, clear light that belongs only to late summer. The future seems to stretch itself out all around him, infinite and possible.

"What do you want to do today?" he asks after a little while.

"This is good," she mumbles sleepily.

He breathes a laugh into her hair. "There's something I want to show you."

It's a few seconds until Vic responds, as if she's on a time delay. "'kay."

Suffused with quiet happiness, Walt shifts to resettle them more comfortably.

"But this first," he says and lets his eyes fall closed.

. . .

 _Lewis' Flax (Linum lewisii) | Linum (flax) is a genus of approximately 200 species in the flowering plant family Linaceae._

 _Meaning: Domestic symbol_

"I promise," she said.

What choice did she have? Her heart was a wet pulpy mess that she wanted to tear from her chest, but she couldn't do the same to Walt's.

Their shared gaze held until the tears she'd been blinking back spilled onto her cheeks. Vic swiped at them with the back of one hand, too tired to be ashamed of her weakness in front of him now.

He stood and took the beer from her unresisting fingers. "You should eat something."

She forced another smile and tried to lighten things between them a little. "Why are you always trying to feed me these days?"

An expression she couldn't interpret passed over his face. He looked frozen, gripped by an unnatural stillness, as if everything in him had suddenly shut down.

"You almost died, Vic."

His voice shook her. Something raw and barely constrained lay under the softly spoken words. It was the first time either of them had said it so plainly. There in the warmth of Walt's cabin, it fell and shattered the quiet as completely as any gunshot could.

"I'm sorry," she said, because she was. She was sorry for getting herself shot and for wanting to die. She was sorry for whatever wounds lay beneath Walt's careful control because of her.

A shallow puff of air escaped him. In a different circumstance she might have taken it for one of his barely-there laughs. Right now he didn't seem to be laughing. He just looked down at her, unreadable, and she looked up at him, held fast by his silence.

"Let's get you some food," he said, and broke the spell.

Vic didn't argue.

She changed out of her uniform and did her best to eat the sandwich Walt made, though it was difficult to remember what hunger felt like. Everything she ate tasted the same these days; her stomach always seemed to be full of something heavy and hardened. Maybe, she thought idly, she was turning to stone. One day she might be nothing but a statue, a monument to bad decisions. A place for birds to shit.

"Have you talked to Travis?" Walt asked once he'd taken their plates back to the kitchen.

"No."

In her mind she could see the happy family at the campground again: mom, dad, and daughter in the middle. Between one heartbeat and the next the little girl vanished, leaving a man and a woman standing bewildered in the middle of the road. Then, just as suddenly, the woman was alone.

"Don't you think you should?" Walt prompted and Vic felt a surge of resentment.

"No."

Avoiding his eyes, she drank some water.

"Okay."

His quiet acceptance made her feel worse. She needed him to understand that she wasn't just being a bitch about this. There were reasons.

"I can't deal with him right now. I'm too angry," she said, staring so intently at the glass in her hands that she wouldn't have been surprised to see the water start to boil.

"Angry with Travis?"

"With Travis. With myself for being such a fucking cliché." She pressed her fingers against her temple, wishing she could scrub away the flashes of memory. "It was a one-time thing and it only happened because I was very, very drunk. For weeks he was like this annoying stray puppy that kept following me around, but there was never anything between us. I don't even remember most of that night, just that I wanted to stop feeling... what I felt. And he was there."

Sleeping with Eamonn had been reckless and selfish but she'd genuinely liked him. Vic's only real regret was the hurt she'd caused someone who could've been her friend. She regretted everything about sleeping with Travis.

"Afterwards I made him swear to never talk about it or even bring it up. We'd just pretend like it never happened. That worked really well until he found the pregnancy tests. Then he just wouldn't let it go, even after I told him it might not be his. He kept _pushing_ me, acting like me having the baby was a foregone conclusion right from the start. I told him I didn't know what I wanted to do but he wouldn't listen."

"He cares about you, Vic."

Walt's measured reply tripped something inside her. She met his eyes, feeling volcanic. Like magma, words bubbled just under her fragile crust, ready to erupt.

"Then where is he?" she demanded. "I know they wouldn't let him see me in the hospital, but I've been out for days. He hasn't called or texted me; he hasn't been by the station. Have you heard from him?"

"No."

"No." She nodded sharply. "Because I was just a walking incubator he banged once and maybe knocked up. He had this idea that we were gonna slot right into his vision of a perfect little family. He kept talking about how he knew what it was like growing up without a father and he didn't want that to happen to this kid. _That's_ what he cared about, Walt, not me."

Buffeted by the heat and force of her chaotic emotions, Vic couldn't stop the way her voice was rising. "I don't owe him anything, okay? All this time he never once asked me what I wanted but he had the balls to fucking _lecture_ me about how I should be grateful for his help. I went along with it because I was too scared and messed up to think about it, and now—"

She was choking, trying to suck in great gulps of air past the knotted words strangling in her throat. "If he'd just left me alone and let me figure it out, maybe we wouldn't be here right now. Maybe none of this would've happened. But she's gone and I don't know what to do, Walt. I don't know..."

There was no way to finish the thought; there was nowhere for it to go. The not-knowing was all she was. Her entire being was composed solely of absence and lack.

Walt laid his hand over the back of hers where it rested on the couch. The pads of his fingers kindled five points of warmth on her skin as if tiny stars had fallen there. "I can't give you an answer. I can't tell you what to do. No one can. It'll take time to work it out. You have to give yourself time."

"It's so hard."

"I know. I know it is. But you can do it. I know you can, Vic. And when you need help, I'm here."

She gave him a wry, tired smile. "I think you've got more important things to worry about than me."

"No. There's nothing more important."

His eyes were intent on her, the dark blue of the deep ocean in the low light. Her stomach flipped over and she became intensely aware of the sound of her own breathing.

For those few moments on the grass the night before, suspended between one decision and the next, Vic had felt a cold, stony peace. Now Walt was offering her solace. Not a way out, but a way through.

What choice did she have?

She turned her hand over beneath his and held on.

. . .

Walt makes her breakfast when they wake up the second time. She wants to know where they're going but he only tells her, "You'll find out when we get there," and grins in response to the flat stare she levels at him.

It must be something perverse in his makeup that makes him enjoy riling Vic up the way he does. Her flashing eyes and cocky stance have an effect on him they probably shouldn't. She's as exhilarating as an electrical storm, and twice as dangerous.

They saddle the horses and he listens to her murmuring to her ugly blue roan. The quarter horse had been incongruously named Buttons by his former owner. He and Vic had taken to each other as soon as they met and she'd promptly renamed him Butthead. Walt watches as the animal lowers his head and pushes his nose into her shoulder, demanding to be petted.

"You are a huge pain in my ass, you know that?" she asks even as she reaches up to scratch underneath his chin. Butthead snorts softly in answer.

They ride out over the rolling grassland, heading toward the sun. The breeze takes the edge off the heat but it's not long before Walt can feel sweat beginning to prickle the back of his neck. He glances at Vic, who's been uncharacteristically silent for a while, to find her wearing a slight smile.

She must sense his attention because she looks over at him. With her sunglasses on it's difficult to judge her expression, but her smile widens and she shakes her head a little as though she's laughing at herself.

"I was just thinking about how much I hated it here when Sean and I moved from Philly. And now it's hard to imagine myself anywhere else."

Walt feels a sense of warmth that has nothing to do with the sun overhead. "Places can grow on you like that. People can, too."

"Is that what I did? Grew on you?"

He considers her, smiling and aglow in the sunlight. Vic's effect on him had been like a wildfire. She'd burned through his landscape, obliterating what was stagnant and dying. And when she'd altered him completely, little by little the life lying dormant inside him began to bloom.

"You were a bit more sudden," he says at last, and she laughs.

"Sudden like a punch to the face."

"Maybe. But I think that's exactly what I needed."

Her smile softens and she bites the side of her lip in a way that always makes him want to kiss her. "So are we getting close to wherever it is we're going?"

"We're almost there."

. . .

 _Poppy Mallow (Callirhoe involucrata) | A species of flowering plant in the mallow family known by the common name purple poppy-mallow._

 _Meaning: Sweet disposition_

They were still in bed in the middle of the day. It made Vic feel decadent in a way she hadn't for years.

She was lying on her stomach with her head pillowed by her arms. The actual pillow was nowhere to be found, or nowhere she could be bothered to look. Walt lay beside her, brushing wide, slow strokes up and down her back, steadily melting her into the mattress. Even after several orgasms, his touch made her hot and fluttery all over and she had to turn her face into the hollow of her arms to hide her giddy, love-drunk smile. Everything inside her felt just a little too tender and new to share yet, even with him.

"What?" came his low, warm voice close to her ear.

"Just thinking," she said as she rested her cheek on her upper arm again.

"I've heard you do that sometimes."

Vic grinned helplessly. "Only sometimes."

He lifted his hand from her back to smooth down the flyaways that had sprung up around her face. She knew her hair was a lank and greasy mess but that didn't seem to deter Walt's fascination. He couldn't seem to stop touching it. There was something so sweet about the way he did it, how gentle he was, that made her feel embarrassingly gooey inside. And also a little self-conscious.

Taking down Malachi and his men the day before had been dirty and bloody. Vic still felt grimy despite cleaning up at the scene and then again in Walt's bathroom. She wanted to wash her hair and shave her legs, find a prettier bra and some underwear that matched. Things she hadn't really cared about for years now suddenly gave her a sense of anticipation: the fun of dressing up to see a guy, the thrill of getting a reaction out of him.

She had to admit that she wanted the chance to be girly for a while.

"I should really get my lazy ass home," she said with a sigh.

Walt's hand stilled and his expression flattened into blankness.

It was such a change from the easy softness of the moment before that Vic was concerned. She pushed up on her elbows to see him better. "What's wrong?"

He shook his head slightly. "Nothing. So you, uh, need to go?"

"Well, yeah," she said slowly, confused. "I'm definitely overdue for a shower, for one thing."

"I have a shower."

She rolled her eyes at him. "Even if you had more than a bar of soap and a bottle of generic shampoo, there's still the problem of me having no clothes here."

His lips curled up slowly at the edges as he took her in. "I really don't see that as a problem."

With that mischievous glint in his eyes he looked boyish and sexy all at once. It was impossible to hold back her laughter. "Clearly."

He grinned, unrepentant. His eerie blankness melted away but she was left with an unsettling sense of déjà vu.

"What was that look on your face?"

"What look?"

"The same one you had this morning when you came outside."

Walt rolled onto his back and blew out a long breath. His eyes were trained on the ceiling as if the answer to her question was written there. Vic studied his profile and waited for him to work his way through whatever it was.

"I woke up and you weren't here," he said, finally. "I was afraid you might, um, regret what happened last night."

She was stunned. "You thought I'd just leave?"

"I don't know. Maybe." He scrubbed one hand over his eyes. "Or changed your mind."

Vic's heart stuttered and broke a little. She slid over to press against his side and make as much contact as she could. With her head pillowed on the splay of his shoulder, she draped her arm across his chest and her thigh along his. Some of the tension in his muscles drained away as his arms came around her.

"Walt, even if last night had been the worst sex I'd ever had, it wouldn't change how I feel." More softly, she added, "Even when I thought I'd never get to have this with you, I still felt it."

He took a deep, slow breath, and his fingers began to sift through the ends of her hair. After a minute he said, "So it wasn't the worst sex you've ever had?"

She turned her face into his chest and struggled not to laugh. "No, I lied. It was awful. We'll need a lot of practice to get better at it."

His silent chuckle shook her and she propped herself up on one elbow to look down at him. He was tousled and relaxed, smiling again. "Practice, huh?"

"Oh, yeah."

His expression gradually grew more thoughtful as he studied her. "What happened this morning?"

The instinct to hide had her insides squirming even as his eyes held her in place. Their conversation that morning already seemed so distant from where they were now; Vic felt removed from it, as though it was only something she'd seen happen to somebody else.

She began tracing formless patterns on Walt's chest, watching the movements of her fingers. "I woke up and I was so happy," she began. "I lay here for a while, but I wanted to let you sleep. I went into the kitchen and started making coffee, mostly just for something to do. I was standing there and then all of a sudden... I remembered."

His face held so much compassion when she raised her eyes to his. "It was like a wave slamming down on top of me, how wrong it was to feel that way and forget about her."

Walt reached out to gently skim her cheek. "You're allowed to be happy, Vic. It doesn't mean you've stopped loving her."

Unable to speak, she bit her lip and shook her head. He eased himself from underneath her and shifted until he was on his side, mirroring her position.

"After Martha died, I was afraid that if I lost the pain it would mean I'd lost her. I spent a long time holding on to it because I thought it was all I had left. But I was wrong. Letting go of the pain doesn't mean you're letting go of her, Vic."

"I don't have anything else," she whispered around the ache in her throat.

"You have your life. That was her gift to you. Would she want you to spend it hurting?"

She was crying now; she felt like she was always crying now. Walt gathered her in and held her close.

"It's not about more or less, Vic," he said quietly. "There's no set amount of love we get that has to be shared around. Love is like any living thing. It grows and it changes with time. That's how it stays alive. It's only when you try to keep it from changing that it dies."

"How did you do it?" she asked. "How did you let go?"

"A little bit at a time. I tried to remember that I had people who cared about me, that Martha would want me to be happy. But I was too stubborn to let it go easily and I made it harder than it could've been. I don't want it to be like that for you."

"So you don't recommend a murderous vendetta as a coping mechanism?"

He gave her the ghost of a smile. "Nope."

She sighed heavily. "I hate this."

"I know."

"Yeah," she said, letting herself feel the warmth and strength of his body against hers. He did know. Walt understood regret and missed chances.

Vic thought of him sitting with her in his office, telling her she was strong enough. He'd been so sure and she'd held on to his conviction like a lifeline. It was him — his unwavering support and patience; he was the reason she'd made it this far.

Lifting her head, she looked into his eyes. They were the beautifully clear, soft blue of the shallow waters off Cancún. She wanted to dive into them. She wanted to crawl inside him where nothing could hurt her.

Starting with his mouth.

"You said something about practice," Walt said a few minutes later. His eyes were darker now, the black of their pupils overtaking the ocean blue.

God, it was tempting. He was tempting.

"Hold that thought," she said reluctantly. "I really do have to go."

"Okay," he said. "Will you, uh, will you be coming back later?"

Her smile felt as though it took over her whole body. It bloomed up all the way from down in her toes and burst like sparklers through her chest. "If you want me to."

"Yes," he said, without hesitation.

"Then I will."

. . .

Walt offers a silent greeting in his mind as they approach the familiar rise.

"Here," he says simply, slowing his horse to a stop. Butthead ambles past them a few steps before Vic reins him in; she twists in the saddle to give Walt a look of disbelief.

"You brought me out here to show me a skinny baby tree?"

He can't do anything but laugh. Nudging his horse to walk on, he tilts his chin at the top of the incline. "That's a green ash. Fraxinus pennsylvanica."

"So we're having a botany lesson," comes the tart response from behind him.

He reins his horse in a few yards below the sapling and dismounts. Vic brings Butthead alongside them and looks down at Walt, eyebrows raised.

"All right, what's so important about this tree?"

"Fraxinus pennsylvanica is a native species in both Pennsylvania and Wyoming. This one's only about three years old now, but they can live for more than two hundred years."

Vic cocks her head in thought. "You planted this?"

"Yep."

"When?"

"Last spring."

With her eyes hidden behind her sunglasses, Vic's expression is unreadable, but he sees the moment she makes the connections in the slight stiffening of her shoulders. A winding thread of unease snakes through him when she doesn't speak.

"I know in the hospital you said you didn't want a service or memorial for her, but I thought maybe..."

He trails off as she turns her head away from him and back to the tree. At length she slides from Butthead and hands Walt the reins in silence. Flanked by the two horses, he waits as she walks closer to the ash, watching her reach out to touch its slim, pale trunk.

The wind rustling through the long grasses sounds overly loud in his ears, like the roar of a great wave cresting all around him. He's always been aware that this offering might be unwelcome, he just hadn't expected to feel so unsure of it when the time came.

Planting the tree had been one of the few ways he'd felt able to act in a season marked by helplessness. His lawsuit had hung above him like his own personal sword of Damocles and Vic's grief was a pain he couldn't hope to share or relieve. The ash had been one small gesture of a gratitude so profound he could scarcely contain it. Vic had survived.

Taking her home with him had been as much for his own sake as for her safety. He'd needed her safe; he'd needed to be able to see her, get to her, take care of her. Not that she'd allowed him much room to do it. At times she'd seemed like a ghost drifting through his cabin, drained of so much of her color and spark. Walt had been terrified that she might simply fade away, that he'd lose the defining shape of her in his life and everything she'd brought to it. She had sustained him and he'd wanted only to do the same. To give her something lasting, a beginning instead of an end.

Under the mid-morning sunlight, he watches Vic run her hands over the thin lower branches of the young tree. Her fingers caress its delicate leaves with such grace it looks like prayer.

At last, in a thick voice, she says, "We can watch it grow up."

There's a sharp ache behind his ribs and his throat is so tight that he has to swallow twice before he can push out any sound. "Yeah."

She turns back to look at him with a tremulous smile. "I love it."

. . .

 _Prairie Smoke (Geum triflorum) | Geum, commonly called avens, is a genus of about 50 species of rhizomatous perennial herbaceous plants in the rose family._

 _Meaning: Love_

"I talked to Henry today," Walt said, his voice barely stirring the quiet air around them.

Vic was burrowed down under the covers against the cold with Walt at her back giving off heat like a radiator. His knees were tucked behind hers and his chin rested on her shoulder; the sound of his steady breathing filled her ears. From the stove in the main room came the occasional soft pops and sizzling of wood shifting as it burned and exposing pockets of sap. The rest of the world outside the cabin's walls was still.

"How's he doing?" she asked.

"Good. Busy."

"I bet."

Some nights the moon speared so brightly into the cabin that it backlit the curtains like a spotlight. Tonight the sky was clouded over beneath a new moon and a thick blanket of darkness lay heavily on them. Only the faintest suggestion of silver reflected from the snow.

"The new people he hired for the casino seem to be working out so far."

"That's good. It's a bad time of year to be short-handed."

"Yeah."

In the few months they'd been together, she and Walt had waded through most of the places in their history where the wounds were deepest. Vic had the feeling that tonight they were stepping blindly into the chilly waters of another one of those rivers.

She brought her hand down to cover Walt's where it rested against her stomach and waited.

"He also mentioned that, uh, that Travis was there the other night."

All she could think to say was, "Oh."

"Did you know he was back?"

"Nope."

Another lull descended between them and Vic wondered if she was supposed to feel something about the news. Walt certainly seemed to be expecting a reaction. But she hadn't seen or heard from Travis since the night she was shot, hadn't thought of him in months.

Travis had never been anyone special to her; they hadn't really even been friends. She'd felt sorry for him at first, given the way things went down with Branch. He'd been useful a few times, despite so obviously wanting to get in her pants. He'd even surprised her on occasion by being unexpectedly thoughtful. But mostly he was just kind of there, part of the background. Until he found out she was pregnant and started trying to run her life.

"He told you, didn't he? Travis told you I was pregnant."

"Yeah."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

Walt spread his fingers, lacing them with hers. "If you'd wanted me to know, you would've told me yourself. It wasn't my place to pry into your personal life, especially not when things weren't right between us."

"But it's the reason you got all protective, isn't it?"

"I've always been protective."

She couldn't deny he had a point.

"Extra protective, then."

"I just needed you safe, Vic." He pressed a soft kiss behind her ear. "That's never changed."

There was no way to argue without sounding like a hypocrite. Frustrating as it was, she couldn't say with any truth that she would have acted differently if he'd been the one in danger.

"He told me he was going to ask you to marry him," Walt said after a moment.

A fat bolt of shock jerked her upright. "What the fuck? Travis?"

"Yep. Came to my office and showed me the engagement ring."

Her laugh was born of sheer disbelief. "Holy shit. I had no idea." After a second she said, "How big was the rock?"

Against her hip, Walt's chest shook with his chuckle. "Tiny."

"Well I definitely would've said no, then." Still reeling, Vic shoved her hands through her hair. "I seriously cannot believe he thought I'd marry him just because I was pregnant. What century are we living in? Jesus, he didn't even know if he was the father!"

"Was he?" Walt asked.

"I don't know. I never looked at the test results," she admitted, sinking back down to the mattress. The cold had already seeped into her face and hands, and she plastered herself against Walt while he pulled the covers in tight around her shoulders.

There were things she still hadn't told him about her life falling spectacularly apart. She'd spent so long trying to hold back at least a tiny kernel of herself from loving him, just in case. Just in case she lost him. Just in case he changed his mind. But her edges had bled so far into him now that there was no longer any way back. Maybe there never had been.

"Sometimes I used to think about... about what it would be like if she was yours," Vic confessed softly. "I wanted her to be."

Walt was silent but his arm around her tightened and she felt the hitch in his breathing. When he finally spoke, his voice was gravelly. "Me too."

In the darkness, a flame of joy flickered to life inside her. "Really?"

"Yeah."

She shifted until their faces were level. "You know, Travis actually asked me if you were the father."

"He asked me, too. So did Henry."

"Henry? You're joking."

"Nope."

"Fuck me. When?"

"I had to tell him what happened to get you into Running Eagle. He asked who the father was and I told him I didn't know. Then he asked if it was me."

"Jesus. Did _everybody_ think we were already doing it?"

Walt laughed softly as he moved in to kiss her. "Seems that way."

She shook her head and slid her hand over his warm skin. "What a fucking waste."

. . .

Walt hobbles the horses so they can wander a little and graze. They immediately begin cropping the late summer growth, utterly uninterested in him or Vic now that there's food to be had.

He walks up to stand by Vic's side in front of the ash tree and she slips her hand into his.

"Pennsylvania and Wyoming, huh?" she asks.

"It seemed like a good fit."

"Yeah." She rests her head against his shoulder. "This was an amazing thing to do. Thank you."

He leans down to press his lips to her temple. "You're welcome." After another minute or so of quiet contemplation, he tugs gently on her hand. "Come on."

Partway down the other side of the rise is a loosely sketched circle of cleared and re-planted land. Within it blooms a profusion of flowers in different shades of pinks, reds, purples, and blues.

Vic gives him a curious look. "You've been busy. I didn't know you were so into gardening."

"Keeps me out of trouble," he says lightly and she snorts.

"Too bad you didn't take it up years ago."

Walt meets her smirk with a raised eyebrow and then pulls hard enough on her hand to make her stumble and fall into him. Her laughter is bright and clear, filling up the empty space between the blue bowl of the sky and the patchwork of green they stand upon. The sound gives him the same light-headed, slightly drunk feeling as the high altitudes of the Bighorns.

"It's beautiful," Vic says when he sets her back on her feet.

"It's still a work in progress, but it's starting to come together."

Letting go of his hand, she begins a slow clockwise path around the garden's circumference. "So, what am I looking at? I've seen some of these before, but I have no idea what they are."

"The little ones are poppy mallow," he tells her, indicating small magenta flowers in a bed of green close to the ground. "They'll keep spreading to cover all the bare soil around the other plants."

"What about the two blue ones? I've seen those on the side of the road."

"The pale blue is Lewis' flax and the more purple ones are harebells."

She nods and takes a few more steps. "They're pretty."

Walt continues, pointing to each as he goes. "The tall, fuzzy pink ones are prairie smoke and the tall purple ones are purple prairie clover. It grows pretty slow, so it'll take a couple of years to reach full size. Pronghorn like to eat it, so it may not last that long. The funny looking lavender ones are fuzzytongue beardtongues."

"You're shitting me."

He can only shrug at her skeptical look. "That's what they're called."

"Kinky." She waggles her eyebrows, making him grin. "Okay, what else?"

"The one with the little pink and purple flowers is Colorado four o'clock."

"Who names these things?" she asks, shaking her head. "What's that other pinky purple one? I've seen that before, too."

"That's showy milkweed. Milkweeds are a habitat and food source for Monarch butterflies. They only lay their eggs on milkweed plants."

"Monarchs are the big orange and black kind?"

"Yep."

Vic wears a soft smile as she gently touches the star-shaped flowers with the tips of her fingers. "Are there any eggs now?"

"I don't know if I got them planted early enough. If not, we'll definitely have them next year." He points to a few scraggly looking green tufts just beginning to erupt with tangled purple flowers. "The dotted blazing star attracts butterflies as well, and it blooms in late summer through early fall, so we'll probably start getting visitors soon."

She straightens up and stands hipshot, hands tucked into the back pockets of her jeans. "You've put a lot of thought into this. I had no idea you knew so much about plants."

"Some of it I already knew. And I got a pretty good education in Wyoming flowers over the winter."

"And yet you've never mentioned any of it."

Even through the shield of her sunglasses, Walt can feel her penetrating gaze. Shifting on his feet, he says, "It was just an idea at first. Once I started working on it, I, uh, wanted to wait until it was finished."

"So what inspired this? You just woke up one day and thought 'I want to plant a garden'?"

His heart beats a restless tempo under the hot yellow sun.

"Something like that."

. . .

 _Dotted Blazing Star (Liatris punctata) | A species of flowering plant in the aster family._

 _Meaning: Symbol of Love, Daintiness_

Winter's grip had been especially fierce for the last week. The sky let loose torrents of sleet that were caught by the harsh north winds and flung almost horizontally at anything in their path. Vic had lost count of the number of accidents she'd been called to on the icy roads.

Tonight, though, everything was calm, as if the earth was holding its breath. She stood at the window and looked out into the darkness, trying to ignore the low-grade headache thumping behind her eyes. Beyond the island of light that spilled from the cabin she could just make out a delicate swirl in the air.

 _The sky is falling,_ she thought to herself in amusement, tipsy from the cocktail of exhaustion and cold medicine in her blood.

It had been an endless, glacial, bone-wearying week. The hacking cough and copious quantities of snot her body produced only added to her enthusiasm for life. Now, though, she had two whole days off and she planned to enjoy them, weather and sickness be damned.

A pair of arms wrapped around her from behind. "I thought you were going to bed," Walt said as she leaned back against him.

"In a minute. I'm watching the snow."

"It's been snowing for days. You said you hated it. In many varied and colorful ways, as I recall."

She chose to ignore his dry tone. "Not like this. This is the pretty, movie kind of snow. The kind that never turns black and slushy in the morning."

"Uh huh."

They stood together for a few moments watching the fat flakes fluttering through the night like white moths.

"Do you remember the dream I told you I had? About the little girl?" Vic asked.

"I remember."

"There was something white in the air around us. Petals, maybe, or snow." She turned her aching, slightly spinning head and rested it against Walt's jaw. "I'd forgotten until just now."

"Sounds pretty," he said, reaching up to cup her cheek.

"It was. Did I tell you I named her? Not on purpose. It just sort of happened."

"No, you didn't tell me. What's her name?" he asked and she loved him for that, for the present tense instead of the past.

"Bee. Like a bumblebee." The insides of her eyelids were fuzzy with static when she closed them. It made her head feel spacey but it lessened the ache. "Her blood type was B negative. It was the only thing I knew about her. I started thinking of her with that big letter B in my head and somehow it became Bee." She shrugged. "I guess it's kind of dumb."

"No." Walt pressed a kiss to her temple. "It's not dumb. Bees are symbols of love and wisdom. They're vital to life."

"And they're small but they can still take you out," she said, smiling.

"Though she be but little she is fierce." His voice held the shape of an answering smile.

"Shakespeare?"

"Yep."

"That's a good one."

Cold seeped through the window in front of her; behind her was the warmth of the cabin and of Walt. Vic felt as though she stood waist deep in the center of mingling currents; not so much a crossroads as a reunion. The bitter and the sweet gathering to form something new.

Walt ran his hands up and down her arms slowly. "I shouldn't have let you make that decision so soon after it happened. I should've made them give you more time to think about it, or waited longer to tell you."

"No," she told him, quiet but firm. "You were perfect."

"You might've been able to find out more about her."

Regret coursed through her. She'd had no idea he felt this way. "Knowing more wouldn't have made a difference, not really. It was too early." Taking one of his hands in hers, she tried to explain. "I've thought about it a lot and what I realized is that knowing facts about her doesn't mean knowing _her_. I couldn't know her because she wasn't a person yet. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah."

"It seems so strange when I think about it sometimes. When you love somebody, you love them for who they are, but I think... I think I love her for what she could've been. The little girl in my dream wasn't a person, either, just someone I imagined. She was a possibility. Bee was real but not real at the same time. Both of them were just... ideas."

"That doesn't make your love any less real."

"No, I know. But maybe it's a selfish kind of love. It felt like she could be a way for me to save myself. To start over and do things better this time. To not be alone. That's a terrible burden to place on anybody but especially a kid."

Walt was silent for a while. "If you believe that we're all here for a reason and that we all have a purpose, then maybe hers was to save you. To save your life and to give you that chance to start over."

"So this time I have to get it right?" she asked wryly. "No pressure."

He chuckled. "Maybe getting it right just means being happy. Letting yourself be happy."

Vic turned in his arms, tilting her head back to look up at him with a smile. "I'm getting pretty good at that."

His own smile was soft. "Glad to hear it."

Outside, white flecks swam through the darkness in little flurries of light. Inside, she laid her head on Walt's chest and pressed her face into the hollow of his throat to feel the red rhythm of his pulse.

"I wish I could've met her, though," she said as his fingers threaded through her hair.

"She would've been amazing," he said. "Just like her mother."

. . .

Walt has always enjoyed watching Vic work; he's just not used to being her target. She's a tenacious investigator, a hunter who probes for weak spots and approaches at different angles to bring down her prey. Nerves fizz in his gut as he looks at her; nerves and — he has to admit — a tiny frisson of arousal.

"Why these ones?" she asks, shifting her focus back to the garden and continuing to circle. "Apart from the cool butterfly thing, what made you choose these plants?"

"Uh, well, they're all native perennials, so they'll last. They all like the sun and don't need a lot of water, so they won't need much long-term looking after now that they've settled in."

It's only a portion of the reason, a minor evasion to delay. He's waiting for her to discover it herself.

She's two thirds of the way around now, closing in. When she halts mid-stride and pivots, Walt knows she's found the answer. Dug into a shallow depression in the soil he's placed a flat stone with a small plaque affixed to its surface. It reads, simply, _Bee, 2016_.

Vic crouches down, her features intent.

He watches her taking it in, her mouth opening soundlessly, and finds himself holding his breath.

Her fingers tremble when they reach out to trace the engraved letters. "This is for her?"

He nods. "Most of these flowers attract bees. That's why I chose them."

"Butterflies and bees," she whispers after a long moment. "I don't know what to say. God, Walt..." She trails off as tears slide down her cheeks.

His throat constricts and he crosses the few steps between them to stand at her side. "You don't have to say anything."

"This is—" She breaks off, her voice cracking, and stands. Pulling off her sunglasses, she wipes her eyes with one hand, then raises them to meet his. They're golden as a hawk's in the shadowless light. "This is the most incredible thing anyone has ever done for me. The tree, and now this..."

The lump in his throat roughens his voice. "I wanted you to have good things to remember her by."

Vic shakes her head at him slowly, smiling. Then she's wrapping her arms around his waist and hugging him tightly.

Time pauses for a brief, eternal span on that hillside. Walt feels his senses contract until the places where they touch are all that exist. His heart slows as he holds her; the knot in his stomach dissolves. Her hair feels hot from the sun, strands ruffled by the breeze. The fabric at the small of her back is damp against his palm. Heat is building where they press together, two bodies that radiate like stars.

Finally, Vic pulls away a little and looks up at him. "I have you."

His blank confusion must be apparent because she smiles.

"You're the reason I'm still alive. You saved me. You took care of me. And then you gave me a reason to get through this, something to hold on to. You've been there for all of it, supporting me and believing in me. My memories of her are all bound up in you, Walt."

How, he wonders, can he possibly deserve her generous heart? Humbled, deeply grateful, he cradles her face in his hands and kisses her forehead, each of her wet cheeks, and finally her lips.

"You saved me, too," he tells her hoarsely, with tears stinging his own eyes.

Her brilliant smile holds just the hint of a smirk. "Well, I don't know if you've noticed, but I kinda like you."

A laugh tumbles out of him and he leans his head against hers. "Somebody's got to."

Vic turns in his arms to face her daughter's garden, shielding her unprotected eyes with one hand. She exhales a deep, slow sigh and it sounds like the final release of some long-held burden. High above them, a handful of crows ride the rising thermals, suspended in the invisible substance of air.

"This is where I scattered Martha's ashes," Walt says, and the taste of the words in his mouth is no longer bitter. "I thought that, uh, they could keep each other company."

"So she won't be all alone," Vic murmurs.

He nods, unable to trust his voice.

"I don't know what I believe happens to us when we die, but... I like the idea that they have one another." She tilts her head to look at him. "You don't think Martha would mind?"

"I know she wouldn't."

Vic looks back to the garden. "Her name should be here, don't you think? It's her place, too."

He's never put up a marker of any kind for Martha, preferring to let her rest in the privacy of his heart. It strikes him now as a selfish thing to have kept away everyone else who loved her. A pang of guilt hits him in the solar plexus. "Yeah, it is."

The sun is almost at its apex overhead. Walt can see the sheen of sweat on Vic's neck, can feel rivulets trickling down his back. He thinks longingly of a cold beer and the cool interior of the cabin but he's content to wait until she's ready to leave.

"Saying thank you just doesn't feel like enough," she says. Her voice is so soft that she could be talking to herself.

"I didn't do it so you'd thank me," he tells her.

Turning again, she loops her arms around his neck and regards him solemnly. "I know. It's just who you are."

Her eloquent eyes are serious but he sees no shadows there. She seems at peace.

"Do you want to stay a while?" he asks.

Something shifts in her expression and she opens her mouth as if to speak. A question lingers there, or maybe it's expectation, but then she gives her head a tiny shake and seems to change her mind. He wonders but doesn't press. Vic will tell him in her own time.

Her teeth catch her lower lip in the coy way he loves and she tilts her head, considering him. He leans in, drawn by that provocative little bite, until she rises up on her toes to meet him. Her mouth is supple and sweet, her kiss humming through his blood in a way he hopes he never gets used to.

When they ease apart there's a luminous quality to her, as if she's glowing from within. He marvels at how her beauty can still surprise him, can still stop his heart.

"Let's go home," she says, stepping back.

"Okay."

Vic takes his hand as they return to the horses, passing the young ash on their way. Walt bids a silent farewell to the spirits they leave behind.

Grief is for the living, he thinks, but so is life and so is healing. Roots and hope grow where they've been planted, and the dead have no need of either.

The wind and the sky will watch over them.

[END]

* * *

 **notes:** Everything I know about Wyoming natives I learned from Wyoming Native Gardens. Wikipedia and All Florists also helped me with the details. Thank you to ziparumpazoo, my sounding board, enabler, and first reader, who gave me the tree.


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